How does janie define herself

Janie's early childhood years are spent in Nanny's household, playing with the white grandchildren of Mrs. Washburn, Nanny's benevolent white employer. Not until she is 6 years old does she realize that she is a brown-skinned little girl — and not white like her Washburn playmates. She is an outsider at school, taunted by the other girls who envy her clothing, her complexion, and her extraordinary hair.

Without giving Janie a chance to be friendly, the girls decide that she considers herself better that they are. Janie makes no friends at school. Nanny encourages this attitude of exceptionality in Janie. The old woman labors not for herself, but for this child whom she believes that God has sent to her. With the help of Mrs. Washburn, Nanny buys some land and a house — more for Janie than for herself, thereby enhancing Janie's role as a very special person.

In her first marriage to the farmer Logan Killicks, Janie, at age sixteen, begins to draw some lines in her own way. Logan sees her as a spoiled child who must learn to be a farm wife. It is quite evident that Janie is willing to perform the chores that she sees as rightfully and dutifully hers, but those chores do not include plowing a potato field, regardless of how gentle the mule is.

Although Logan recognizes the special qualities that Janie carries within herself, he fails to respect Janie as his wife. She desires a better life, and Janie believes that she will find it with Joe Starks. Basically, Joe keeps Janie socially and emotionally isolated. And all this isolation leads to being compliant: Janie, although occasionally speaking her mind , shows little spunk during their marriage. However, her caring nature won't allow her to distance herself from him while Joe is dying.

She does everything in her power for him but in the end feels victorious at his death. This sense of victory isn't surprising: she's won some freedom at last.

Having lived under Joe's thumb for so long, Janie is cautious when she first meets her Prince Charming, the awesomely named Tea Cake. Though they have chemistry, he seems a little suspect. He's much younger than she is, for one thing, and he doesn't seem reliable.

In fact, she falls head over heels in love with him:. Janie awoke next morning by feeling Tea Cake almost kissing her breath away. Holding her and caressing her as if he feared she might escape his grasp and fly away. After a long time of passive happiness, she got up and opened the window and let Tea Cake leap forth and mount to the sky on a wind. That was the beginning of things. She's so swept off her feet that she marries him and embarks on a new, rural life.

And, despite what her nosy neighbors think, she ends up liking her change in material status. Even though she's not well-to-do, she enjoys the freedom it brings. Now that she's not chained to middle-class values, she can associate with everyone she wants and speak out freely.

For one thing, Janie learns that true love comes with its own consequences. She discovers what it means to be jealous for the first time. She worries and cries at home when Tea Cake goes missing:. She also suffers because of his mistakes. When a hurricane rolls in, Tea Cake makes the literally fatal mistake of refusing to leave when he's offered a ride out of the Everglades. This decision to stay behind triggers a chain of events that ultimately leads to his death. She can't help him survive:.

But she can help him die. She is welcomed back by unfriendly faces and vicious rumors and gossip about her past relationship with young Tea Cake, her third husband. The novel continues with Janie telling her friend, Pheoby Watson, her story in flashback form starting from when she was younger and lived with her grandmother. Janie retold her story about her three marriages with Logan,.

For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time Hurston 1. Janie Crawford, protagonist. Symbols can appear in a novel as an event, action, or object. The gate is an important symbol throughout the novel and carries great significance. The author chooses this to be a symbol because Janie, the main character,.

It was a period of great achievement in African-American art and literature during the s and s. This surge gave birth to several authors, playwrights and dramatists, such as Zora Neale Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston is now considered among the foremost authors of that period, having published four novels, three nonfiction works, and. Both stories share the idea of social advancement through different settings. The story, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is about a woman who goes through various men to then end up being the wife of the mayor.

The character Jane.